Blocking IP Ranges and Addresses

In order to track how real visitors interact with your website we can exclude any traffic that results in non-legitimate visitors accessing your website. Typically we block our team’s IP address because we are working on your website. We are not a valid visitor for tracking purposes. The truth is you are not a valid visitor either, therefore your IP address(es) should also be blocked.
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To get the most accurate tracking data we will need to block all IP addresses that shouldn’t count as legitimate visitors. Your data is more actionable when it includes real site visitors.

Blocking IP Addresses in Google Analytics

1) Go to this website

2) Highlight your IP address and copy it (cntrl C)

3) Copy and paste in the IP address into Google Analytics settings module Note: you need to enter the IP Address like this “63\.212\.171\.” (Add backslashes)

Direct Link to Filters

Repeat process if necessary. E.g. Home, web team or other administrative locations that are not legitimate visitors. If you are on a network you can block IP ranges by using a handy free expression builder tool Google provides. Simply enter the starting IP address and the end IP address, the tool will write the expression needed to block the range of IPs on your network.

Why Block IP Addresses?

Once we do this, Google Analytics does not pick up any of these IP visits so they are excluded from your report data. It only takes a few minutes to do this even if you are part of a network that has a range of IP addresses. All you will need to determine is the beginning and end of your IP address range.

I encourage you to use this small set up task to your advantage, especially if you have employees, web design firms, SEO companies and other non-legit traffic sources. We ideally want to understand the behaviors of genuine visitors that find your site.

Questions You Will be Able to Clearly Answer Now

  • How did they find your site?
  • Who sent them?
  • What did they do on your site?
  • Where did they come from?

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